Differences
by gunshotinparentheses
Summary: Dante and Daryl are similar in many ways. They both carry crossbows, they both hunt, they both lose their siblings, and they both have troubled pasts. But it's their differences that end up bringing them together. DarylxOC Daryl/OC Rated M for possible later chapters, but K currently
1. Chapter 1

Dante Sarante knew what everyone in the camp thought of her and the fact was that she didn't care.

She had dealt with the way people looked at her all her life.

When Dante was around her sister, Nora, people always looked at her this way.

This wasn't Nora's fault and Dante would never blame her sister for it, even if she resented the other woman for it - just slightly.

Nora was...well...perfect.

Nora was beautiful, tall, extraordinarily intelligent, kind, and patient. She had been a researcher at the CDC before all of this shit went down and Dante went to get her out of the city before she could get trapped in the hell hole it subsequently became.

Nora had beautiful, short, curly, brown hair that bobbed just below her chin. She was slender and tan, reaching at about 5'9 in a pair of tennis shoes. She wore little red rimmed glasses on the end of her nose that only accentuated her cute face even more. She was strikingly smart, knowing quite a bit about anything and everything you could think to ask about, and she knew more than anyone else in their survivor group about the dead who had returned to life.

Dante, on the other hand, was barely 5'3 in her rugged black, hunting boots. When anyone saw her and her sister together they were immediately shell shocked by Dante's palor in comparison to Nora's beautifully tanned skin. Well, maybe their contrasting skin wasn't the only thing that made them shell shocked... Dante also had a head full of long, dark blue hair. She had a tendency to tie it back in a ponytail but if it was worn down it would reach her lower back.

Nora also had a tendency to wear cute little blouses and, before the apocalypse, matching skirts. Nowadays, Nora wore her cute blouses with a pair of blue jeans and her running sneakers. Dante still wore what she had always worn - a pair of beat up old black jeans that conformed to her shape all the way down to her ankles, her equally beaten up black boots and a plain colored tank top beneath a long sleeved plaid shirt.

Nora had always made fun of her for having so many variations of the same thing in her closet. Dante had about 5 different colored plaid over shirts to choose from and at least 50 different tank tops in varying colors. Only a few pairs of jeans though, she was too petite to find many pairs of pants that fit her comfortably, although she would never admit it. Her height was a sore spot for her that only her sister could tease her about and hope to get away with it.

On this particular day, Nora was about to go out on a run to Atlanta with a few of the other survivors that they had met up with on the highway.

Dante had fought with Nora about her going at first but Nora had assured her younger sibling that she was smart, fairly fast and she really just wanted to contribute more to the group than doing laundry.

Dante had struggled with letting her go at first. Even though Nora was the older sibling Dante was fiercely overprotective of her and had said that if Nora wanted to go that she wanted to go with her, but Nora told her that they would be fine being separated for one day, just a few hours even! And had eventually convinced Dante that they needed Dante there to hunt for more food.

Nora knew that only Dante and the Dixon brothers knew how to hunt, not that they ever hunted together.

Daryl, the younger of the Dixons, was already off hunting somewhere and Merle was planning on going along to Atlanta.

This only worried Dante more, as Merle Dixon was not the kind of guy she wanted her precious Nora around.

"That punk ass puts a hand on you and I will cut it off myself." Dante warned Nora.

Nora only rolled her eyes and patted Dante's head, earning a glare from her little (in every way) sister before getting into the car and heading off to Atlanta.

Dante grabbed her crossbow, her prized possession, and a backpack full of essentials - a few water bottles, a flashlight, the last of her granola bars - and set off into the woods to go hunting just an hour or so later.

That was another thing that often earned her strange looks, and Dante knew that the younger Dixon brother had noticed it as well.

To the strangers that she now shared a campsite with she often seemed more similar to Daryl Dixon than to her own sister.

Honestly though, Dante had hardly ever spoken a word to anyone in the campsite, both of the Dixon brothers included.

She had observed Merle's sordid behavior though, and had almost picked a fight with him once, Nora had put a hand on Dante's shoulder and stopped her before she could cause any trouble, always being the more calm and rational of the two of them.

Not to say that Dante was hotheaded, or at least, she didn't think of herself as being hotheaded. She just didn't like racist, sexist pieces of shit like Merle Dixon and since the world ended and there were no more prisons, she was finding less and less reasons to put up with the kind of bullshit that Merle was constantly putting out.

As she entered the woods, Dante fiddled with the star shaped locket she wore on her neck, noting the tracks of the Dixon brother who was currently out hunting and making sure to go in the opposite direction.

Dante thought fondly back to her sixteenth birthday, when Nora had presented her with the locket containing a picture of the two of them.

She hummed down at the locket as she stepped quietly through the woods, she was small in both stature and size and it made her tread through the woods light and quiet, perfect for hunting.

 _Ahh yes_ she thought, catching sight of a rabbit some fifteen feet in front of her. Nora loved rabbit a lot more than the squirrels that Daryl often brought back.

Dante couldn't wait to see the look on her face when she got back to camp.

x

x

Only the next morning when Dante returned to camp, it seemed like everyone was there BUT her sister.

"Nora?" Dante called out, as she stepped around their tent, peeking inside to find no one.

"Nora!?" Dante called out, louder.

"Dante, hold on for a minute now." Dale calls down to her from the top of the RV.

"Why? What's going on? Andrea's back, where the fuck is my sister!?" Dante yells up at him.

A man Dante doesn't recognize walks up to her then and Dante takes a step back, not allowing him to impose his height on her.

"Who the fuck are you?" She breathes out, looking him up and down. He's dressed in a plain, white shirt and a pair of dark slacks with creases down the center of each pant leg from being pressed. She recognizes the style and narrows her eyes at him.

He opens his mouth to speak but at that moment screams erupt from the edge of the forest and he takes off running in that direction.

Dante throws her hunting bag, now stuffed with three rabbits, down to the dirt and then races off after him, crossbow at the ready.

When she catches up, most of the men from camp are already taking turns beating the crap out of a walker that had, apparently been munching on a deer.

Dante frowns and goes to inspect the deer, finding several bolts similar to the ones that she uses in her own crossbow sticking out of it.

Once the men have decapitated the walker they turn to look at her.

"That your handiwork?" Shane asks her, looking down at the deer.

Before she can answer the sounds of twigs snapping behind her make her spin around, raising her crossbow and pointing it towards the moving branches until -

"Son of a bitch! That's MY deer!" The younger Dixon brother barks as he emerges from the brush.

He squints at her as she lowers her crossbow but he doesn't raise his own in return.

"Look at it. All gnawed on by this stupid!" He begins kicking the still walker body in anger, "Disease bearing!" *kick "Motherless!" *kick "Poxy bastard!"

"I been tracking this thing for miles. Gonna cook us up some venison. What ya think? We can cut around this chewed up part right here?" Daryl continues.

Dante rolls her eyes and begins walking away when she notices the head of the walker, still blinking and growling, despite being some feet away from its body.

Dante sighs as Amy and Andrea rush away, Amy clutching her stomach like she's going to be sick.

She aims at the skull of the thing but another arrow meets the walker's eye before she has a chance to discharge her weapon.

She turns back and glares.

"Too slow, smurfette." Daryl says, smirking and moving forward, grabbing his bolt back out of the walker's eye before stalking off towards the camp.

She scoffs in his general direction but says nothing, just moves to follow him back towards the camp.

"Merle! Hey Merle! Get your ugly ass out here! I got us some squirrel!" He yells into the camp and that's when Dante notices that she hasn't seen _or heard_ Merle during her search for her sister either.

Dante hurries towards the center of camp, looking around for either one of their missing siblings.

"Daryl, Dante, just slow up a bit, I need to talk to you." Shane says, putting his rifle away in his jeep.

"About what?" Daryl asks, stopping to turn and look at Shane.

Dante leers up at him and the newcomer.

"Where's my sister, Shane?" Dante growls, straight to the point.

Daryl looks down at her for a moment and then peers around the campsite.

Dante can practically hear those rarely used gears in his brain turning.

"Well that's kinda what I need to talk to you both about." Shane continues.

Dante continues to glare at him. Daryl looks at her and then can't seem to decide where to look after that.

"There was a...problem in Atlanta." Shane says finally and Dante shakes her head, she doesn't want to hear what she's sure he's about to say..

"He dead?" Daryl asks finally, and Dante's glad that she didn't have to ask it because she really didn't want to.

They both watch Shane now, Daryl is kind of pacing back and forth, displaying a bit of pent up energy that Dante is also feeling in this moment.

"We're not sure." Shane say.

"The fuck do you mean you're not sure!?" "Either he is or he ain't!" Daryl and Dante both yell, voices overriding one another's.

The newcomer approaches them both then and Dante turns her glare on him immediately.

"There's no easy way to say this so I'll just say it."

"Who are you!?" Daryl barks out and Dante just keeps her mouth shut because Daryl is already asking all the same questions that she wants answers to.

"Rick Grimes." He answers shortly.

"Rick Grimes. You got somethin' you wanna tell me?" Daryl fires back at him.

"Your brother was a danger to us all. So I handcuffed him on a roof, hooked him to a piece of metal. He's still there." He answers calmly.

"Hold on, lemme process this." Daryl says, walking away a few steps, his face growing red.

"What about my sister?" Dante asks, and Rick won't meet her eyes.

"IS SHE DEAD?!" Dante yells when he doesn't answer her.

"You tellin' me you handcuffed my brother to a roof and you LEFT HIM THERE!?" Daryl screams at Rick suddenly and Dante sidesteps to keep herself out of his direct path to Rick.

"Yeah."

Daryl chucks his string of squirrels at Rick and then makes to tackle him but Shane tackles Daryl to the ground first and immediately gets him in a chokehold.

Dante doesn't know why she does it, probably just the pent up anger she's feeling from getting no answers about her sister, but she rushes Shane and tackles him sideways, effectively releasing his chokehold on Daryl.

Daryl coughs and splutters on the ground for a moment and Shane shoves her off of him and roughly to the dirt.

Dante's back on her feet in an instant and about to pull out her knife -

"Now look! I want to have a calm discussion about this, do you think you two can manage that!?" Rick shouts at them both.

"Get that damn knife outta your hand girl before I take it from you." Is all Shane says and Dante nearly growls at him.

"I'll take him, you take Grimes." Daryl mutters to her and she eyes him uneasily. Since when are they partners in crime?

"I want some fucking answers. NOW!" She screams at Rick, louder than any of them are expecting and Daryl makes a face at her.

"Look now, what I did was not on a whim. Merle does not work and play well with others..." Rick says calmly to Daryl before turning to look at her.

"As for you...Dante, is it?" Dante only glares at the sheriff.

He knows her damn name. Small talk does not go over well with her.

"Dante, your sister was knocked out by Merle right before we escaped Atlanta. T-Dog was the only one left on the roof at that point and he wasn't able to carry her down to us."

Dante turns her glare on T-Dog then.

"Look, it's not Rick's fault. I had the key. Merle wanted it. He tried to punch my lights out...Nora got in the way and he punched hers out instead. I tried to pick her up but...Merle had already kicked my ass and your sister's big, even if she is skinny. I...dropped the key to the cuffs in the process." He says nervously, not meeting anyone's eyes.

"You couldn't pick it up?" Daryl asks.

Dante's about ready to lunge at T-Dog now.

"I dropped it down a drain." He explains.

"Where the fuck did you leave her!?" Dante shouts at him. She can hear Daryl sniffling a little behind her.

"Now, calm down." Shane says, approaching her from the side, trying to flank her.

She takes another step towards T-Dog.

"You said he punched my fucking sister out and then you left her there, was she within grabbing distance of him then? Was he somewhere he could fucking grab her!?" She screams at him urgently.

"I...I dragged her a little ways...I don't know." T-Dog answers, still not meeting her eyes.

"You're telling me you left my big sister knocked out cold on a fucking roof with MERLE DIXON!? Mr. 'NICE TITS' DIXON!?" She screams at him. Shane is taking another step towards her and she snaps her head to the side to glare at him.

"Don't you fucking worry about me, Shane. I'm not going to kick his sorry ass. Just tell me where the fuck you left her so I can go get her before Merle does something he's going to fucking regret!" She yells.

"My brother ain't a rapist!" Daryl snarls at her.

"I don't fucking know that!" She snarls straight back.

"Just what the fuck you tryna say?" He barks, stepping toward her. Dante is aware of Shane taking a step towards them too now.

"What I'm trying to say is: _look the fuck around you!_ These women here all lasted because they had men protecting them. Women and men were fifty fifty in this country before this shit broke out but I'm willing to bet that those odds are no longer in our favor, ladies!" She shouts, looking around at the women in the camp.

"Understand that the longer we survive this shit, the rarer we're going to become. Before the dead started waking back up, you know what killed women more than anything else on this god damn planet? MEN. Merle's a racist, sexist, punk that I wouldn't even wipe my damn boots on and now he's handcuffed to a roof next to my beautiful UNCONSCIOUS sister." She growls.

The camp is silent.

Dante looks at Daryl but he's pointedly looking at the dirt now.

"Look, I chained the door to the roof so the geeks couldn't get at them. It was all I could do. It's padlocked. They're not getting through that." T-Dog says.

"Like that makes it any better!" She shouts at the man.

"The hell with all y'all! Just tell me where my brother is so's I can go get him!" Daryl snarls.

Dante looks from T-Dog to Rick, expectantly.

"He'll show you." Lori says suddenly, and everyone turns to look at her. "Isn't that right, Rick?" She adds quietly.

Rick looks between Dante and Daryl and then finally nods.

"I'm going back."

Dante and Daryl both immediately go to get their crossbows from their respective resting places and Dante unloads the rabbits from her pack to make room for anything else she might need.

She catches Daryl looking at her but when she turns to look back at him he looks away.

Shane starts making a fuss about Rick going back to save Merle and Nora.

"A douchebag and a biologist, man? Neither of them are worth it, Rick, you just made it back."

"That's easy for you to say, it's not _your_ fucking family up there!" Dante growls, coming up to Shane and Daryl immediately stands behind her, backing her up literally.

"You, Daryl and...Dante? That's your big plan?" Lori asks. Dante glares at her.

"Why do you people act like I don't exist? I get that you don't like me, I don't like _you_ either, but I've brought in half the food that you sure as hell don't mind eating! My sister taught you how to disinfect your water with bleach instead of boiling it, which is actually safer, and you act like we're not worth shit to you!? Fuck you!"

"Calm down or I'll take you down." Shane says, stepping towards her, looming over her.

To her surprise Daryl steps in front of her then.

"You gonna beat up a little girl now?" Daryl growls at the other man.

"Is that what you all see me as!? My sister is older than me but I'm twenty-seven. I know how I might look but I have my fucking driver's license to prove it. I'm not some little fucking girl, I'm a woman and I can hold my own!" She snarls.

"Hey, hey, no one is saying that you can't." Rick says, turning back to look at her. "But I wouldn't mind having an extra hand." He adds, turning to look at Glenn then.

"Oh, come on." Glenn groans.

"In and out, like you said." Rick starts, and Dante scoffs, heading back to her tent to stuff her pack with a few extra water bottles.

When she comes back Daryl is already climbing into the back of the big van that everyone but her sister and Merle had rode back to camp in. Dante sighs and shoulders her crossbow, checks that her knife is secure in it's holster and then jumps into the van after him.

"Hey." Daryl says, his voice is low and gruff and she realizes that he's never talked to her like this before.

Quietly, just between the two of them when no one else is around.

Well...he had once...they had nearly shot each other hunting in the woods at the same time, but then he had only scoffed and told her she was lucky he didn't put an arrow in her head before stalking off in the other direction.

This was different.

He seemed almost...gentle.

"Didn't mean to say you were a kid. Didn't know you were that old." He mutters and Dante is a little surprised.

She's still riled up about her sister but this is the closest to an apology that she thinks anyone has ever gotten from one of the Dixon brothers, although they've both had plenty to apologize for since their camp had come together.

Dante just puts a hand on his shoulder and nods and then Glenn enters the truck and Daryl immediately shakes her off his shoulder, all gentility lost.

x

 **Please review and let me know what you think! Thanks for reading!**

 **X**


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you to those of you that reviewed! I know this story is just barely getting started but I appreciate any encouragement or suggestions!**

 **I know that approaching the idea of them being so similar is a tricky subject but I'm hoping that the further I get into the story the better it will be.**

 **Please review and thank you for reading!**

 **X**

 **xx**

"So he cut off his fucking hand but where is SHE? Where is my sister!?" Dante growls furiously, spinning around the roof, looking at the clues around her.

Daryl meanwhile has finally stopped sniveling and now he whips around and points his crossbow in T-Dog's face.

"Son of a bitch." Dante growls, immediately turning her own crossbow on Daryl in turn.

Rick has his gun to Daryl's head too.

"I won't hesitate. I don't care if every walker in the city hears it." Rick says lowly.

Daryl is squinting and blinking repeatedly, he seems unable to decide whether or not it's worth it for a moment and from where Dante is standing she can tell that he's struggling not to cry just like back at the camp when he had first found out that Merle had been left on the roof... but then he lowers his crossbow and immediately asks T-Dog for a "do rag or somethin'."

Dante rolls her eyes and lowers her own crossbow.

Seriously? What's with this guy? He points a weapon at the man's head and then asks him for a favor a moment after?

Daryl wraps Merle's amputated hand in T-Dog's handkerchief and then looks around to Glenn to put it in his backpack.

Glenn squints his eyes closed, "Please, no." He murmurs and Dante huffs.

"Here, put it in mine." She says shortly, turning around.

Daryl roughly shoves the little "package" into her backpack and then they both immediately resume their hunt for clues to their siblings whereabouts.

"Guess the saw blade was too dull to cut through the hand cuffs...ain't that a bitch..." He mumbles as Dante scans the ground, disregarding the blood spots that clearly belong to Merle and then finding a few single drips where her sister must have been knocked out.

"Must have used a tourniquet. His belt maybe..." Daryl is grumbling just as Dante finds what she's been searching for.

 _"I am okay. We will find you"_ is scribbled in what looks like crayon on the ledge of the roof.

No. Not crayon.

"Eyeliner." Dante murmurs out loud to herself, earning her a glance from Daryl. He stomps over to see what she's looking at and squints down at the writing.

"Guess they teamed up." He observes, looking at her, raising his eyebrows.

"Not like she had many options." Dante grumbles, not wanting to make eye contact.

"Yeah, sure she wasn't _his_ first pick neither." He growls back, stalking towards the door on the other end of the roof.

They continue their search through the building, Dante and Daryl taking the lead, calling out to their respective siblings and taking down walkers in turn until they come upon a small kitchen where the flame on the stove is still going.

Dante finds what looks like a small iron still covered in burning flesh and blood. She wrinkles her nose at it and looks around for other clues.

"What is that?" Glenn asks quietly from behind her.

"Flesh. He cauterized the stump." Rick answers for her.

"Told you he was tough. Nobody can kill Merle but Merle." Daryl says.

Dante ignores him and continues her scan of the room until a small wrapper on the counter catches her attention.

"You left her with her pack?" Dante asks then, looking to T-Dog.

"Uh, yeah, I think she had it with her. It wasn't on her when I tried to carry her off the roof but it was up there, I didn't take it." He nods.

Dante smirks.

"That gave them a great advantage." She says, picking up the wrapper of a gauze pack that was lying on the counter of the little kitchenette.

"Believe it or not...she's taking care of him." Dante murmurs, mostly to herself.

"He's still lost a lot of blood. Even with your sister, he's weak." Rick says, looking between her and Daryl.

"Yeah? Didn't stop him from breakin' out of this deathtrap." Daryl says then, heading to a window in the back, Dante is right on his heels.

The window had been shattered and there's some blood still around the edges of it, and there, yes!

"Another one!" Dante gasps, excitedly, beginning to crawl through the window, crossbow ahead of her, she yelps in pain when a hand grabbing onto her shirt yanks her back and she can feel her shirt and skin just over her rib cage being cut.

"Get the fuck off of me!" She cries as Rick shoves her backwards.

Dante pants and winces in pain, trying to assess the damage. She can't see anything past her breasts though, sizeable C cups on a small body making it impossible for her to see the part of her that's currently stinging with pain, just below where her bra ends.

"The hell you do that for!?" Daryl is barking getting up in the sheriff's face immediately.

"Now back up, calm down, both of you just need to hold on. We can go after them but we need to make a plan and keep a level head." Rick says. He's mere inches from Daryl's face.

"That why you cut her up on the damn window? You call that keepin' a 'LEVEL HEAD'!?" He retorts and Rick peers past Daryl at Dante.

She's set her crossbow down now, it's leaning against the wall and she's trying to brush a hand over the stinging spot and she can feel it, a big chunk of glass and she hisses a breath in.

"Jesus.." Glenn mutters, staring her down.

"That bad?" Dante asks.

"Well...I mean...you know." He stutters out and Dante sighs and looks to the ceiling, silently asks God why she was being tortured like this.

When Dante looks back all four of the men in the room are staring at her.

"No, I don't fucking know, I can't see past my boobs, I need a mirror or something." She explains, trying to keep what little patience she has left.

After that no one wants to make eye contact with her, they all try to find something more interesting to look at like the floor or the ceiling or their shoes.

"C'mere." Daryl says finally, nodding in a way that makes Dante think it's more to prepare himself than her.

Dante narrows her eyes at him but cautiously takes a step forward.

"Gonna put you up on that counter and pull it out of you, alright?" Daryl says in his low gravelly voice. Dante feels a chill run up her spine and tries to shake it off. What was that?

She looks to Glenn who gives her a little nod like it'll be okay and then she nods at Daryl in turn.

Daryl sets his crossbow down next to hers against the wall and then he scoops her up with surprising ease, she hisses in pain a little and he looks down at her and for the first time she's shocked to realize just how beautiful his blue eyes are, and how full of concern they are in this moment. Dante's so distracted that she doesn't even realize that she's already been on the table for a few moments until Daryl sort of clears his throat and shocks her back into reality.

"Gonna rip your shirt a little bit." He says awkwardly.

Dante is staring at him kind of wide eyed but she just nods.

Daryl pulls out his hunting knife and Dante closes her eyes, the way she would if she were about to get a shot.

She can hear the fabric of her tank top being cut through and then -

"Daryl, wait! What if...sometimes it's bad to take those kinds of things out. I mean, you could really hurt her if it's wedged into like her lungs or her heart or something." Glenn says, stepping forward.

Daryl squints down at her speculatively and Dante laughs a little, making the stinging sensation worse.

"It's okay, Glenn. I'll be fine. It's practically a splinter, I just want it out. If it was really that deep I would be in a hell of a lot more pain." Dante explains and Daryl stares down at her for a moment.

He huffs out a little laugh. "You're tougher than I thought, little blue." He mumbles and before Dante even has time to think of a witty retort she gasps for air as a shockwave of pain goes through her.

She blinks a few times, there are tears rolling down her cheeks even though she feels more shocked than in pain.

Daryl is grinning down at her, holding a piece of glass roughly the length of half of her thumb and covered in blood. Dante gapes at him and he drops the piece of glass on her face.

She flinches and then growls in annoyance and sits up, ignoring the pain and wetness she can feel beneath her bra and jumping down from the table, going to her pack and pulling out a large bandage and slapping it over where she can feel the pain and wetness to be stemming from.

Her hand is covered in blood. Of course, today would be the day she had worn a white tank top. She can only imagine how messy she must look.

"Keep your fucking hands off of me." She growls at Rick, going by him to pick up her crossbow.

"Especially when you don't even know what the hell I'm doing!" She adds, going back to the window.

"Now, look, I'll say it again-"

"Say whatever you want! Just say it without touching me, there's another fucking note from my sister down here that I _could_ have read if you weren't so scared that I was going to jump out the damn window!" She snarls, leaning through the traitorous window once again to peer down at the note written in sloppy eyeliner.

She pulls back inside the kitchen after reading the message and stares Rick down again as she grabs her crossbow from where it was propped up against the wall.

"Not like you give a fuck about me anyways, what does it matter to _you_ if I go after Nora?" She adds, glaring at the cop.

Rick breathes out a long sigh.

"What did it say?" He asks instead, looking frustrated and tired. Dante glares at him.

She turns her attention to Daryl instead and pointedly tells him: "It said _'camp'_ nothing else."

"They gonna try to get back to camp?" Daryl considers, narrowing his eyes.

"He's not going to make it far with those injuries, and your sister might even be concussed." Rick says, looking back and forth between the two of them.

"We can check around a few streets if you can _both just keep a level head_."

Dante continues to glare at the man.

She wants to tell him that she doesn't need his help and that she can go and look for her sister on her own.

Technically, she can go look for her and she would probably do a better job of finding her if she doesn't have people slowing her down.

At the same time, Atlanta is really overrun and it wouldn't hurt to have someone watching her ass.

"I can do that." Daryl answers to Rick, nodding just slightly.

Well, that removes the option of having Daryl partner up with her.

"Fine.' Dante sighs bitterly.

"I don't know, man. I want to get those guns first. I'm not looking to stroll through Atlanta with just my good intentions." T-Dog says, looking between them all.

Dante rolls her eyes.

"Now you want to backtrack for those guns when I have a god damn trail head right here? If I follow this I'm sure to find my sister, but you want to go in the opposite direction to go find those damn guns? I'm going to lose her! Every second she's out there she's in danger, by the time we get the damn guns it might be too late for her!" Dante argues and Rick immediately puts his hand up to calm her.

Daryl is sort of nodding his head at her, turning to look at the shattered window again.

"She's gotta point." The dirty man says, looking at Rick again.

Dante's face lightens up from the scowl she had been wearing. If she can convince Daryl to go then they could almost undoubtedly find their siblings, just the two of them.

Rick, however, seems to see these thoughts forming in Dante's head and takes a step closer to where she's standing just behind and to the left of Daryl.

To Dante's surprise, Daryl side steps to block her from him.

"Look, I know what you're thinkin'. I know it's family, I understand that. I went through hell to find mine. But the best way to do this is _as a team._ We could use your help getting those guns, and I figure once we have the guns, you won't mind having our help finding your brother and sister either..." Rick is holding intense eye contact with both of them, even though Dante is far shorter than Daryl and kind of tucked behind him.

"Do you think you both can do this?" Rick asks then, sort of nodding his head.

Dante's glare returns. She's seen this stupid psychological play before. Nod your head while asking someone a question and they're more likely to say yes because you're influencing their thoughts by nodding yourself.

Daryl sniffs a little and grabs his crossbow, "Yeah."

"Fine." Dante agrees.

Daryl leads their way down through the building and from there Glenn takes the lead with Dante following closely behind him, crossbow raised and ready. Daryl takes up the back after that, even though no one asks him to. Dante nods at him when she sees him go to make his way to the end of their tight knit line and he nods back. Maybe it's some kind of crossbow code they have or something, Dante doesn't really know, but they seem to be able to understand what the other had been thinking: having one of them in the front and one of them in the back was a smart plan.

x

When they finally make it to the building that's along the alleyway where Glenn apparently first met Rick (and ballsed everything up for everyone else) they stop to form a plan.

Glenn pulls a big whiteboard down from the wall and begins to draw out little squares on it, gathering other little supplies like a few paper clips and a rubber eraser while he draws out what Dante figures must be the surrounding streets.

Dante crouches low beside the white board and peers down at it as Glenn draws more and more little squares. She can feel Daryl come to stand behind her, leaning against the desks and she looks up at him for a moment, she's not sure why.

Daryl matches her eye contact and then she does know why.

He's just as sad as she is.

They'll both go along with whatever plan Rick and Glenn cook up to go get those stupid guns and they'll both watch the ass of everyone around them, and they'll both take down as many walkers as possible.

However, looking into Daryl's icy blue eyes, it's clear to Dante that they're both only doing all of this for the same reason...he's only here for his brother just like she's only here for her sister, and if he's thinking the same way that she is...

Wow.

Dante sort of wants to go give the man a hug. The idea that Nora had already been killed by walkers in the streets of Atlanta trying to flee from the city has been crossing Dante's mind nonstop since she had found Nora's note on the roof.

The fears had only been slightly lessened upon finding that Nora and Merle had made it to the kitchen to cauterize his wound. Still, though.

Dante breaks eye contact and looks back down at the board where Glenn is nearly done drawing squares now. She sniffs in some air and is surprised to feel wetness sliding down her cheek. She quickly brushes the tear away, looking around her to see if anyone had noticed.

The only eyes that meet hers are Daryl's.

She quickly looks back down to the board as Glenn begins explaining his plan.

"I'll go alone since I'm the fastest. Daryl and Dante should be in the alley with me to back me up."

"Why us?" Daryl asks, chewing on his thumbnail.

"Your crossbows are quieter than his gun." Glenn explains.

"Wait, wait, wait wait. Who says you're faster?" Dante interjects.

Glenn looks at her.

"I did cross country back in high school, and then track during my college years." Dante explains. "I'm fast."

The guys are all exchanging glances, considering the information.

"Crossbow ain't nothin', you run with that it's gonna slow you down, or you leave it behind." Daryl says.

Dante looks up from her spot on the floor to meet his eyes again.

They hold eye contact for just a few moments before finally she Dante shrugs and then nods and looks back at Glenn.

"I'll help back you up, if you're sure you want to do this." Dante agrees then.

Glenn nods and they all look around the room at one another. Ever since the beginning of the apocalypse there have been many moments like this. Moments where people can't believe that they're about to do what they are, in fact, about to do, but they know they have to do it.

A few short minutes later they're all outside, T-Dog and Rick are in an alleyway a few streets down to give Glenn coverage from that side.

Dante creeps up behind Glenn and Daryl keeps close behind her, both of them with their crossbows raised.

"You got some balls for a chinaman." Daryl grumbles as Glenn tries to psych himself up for his suicide run.

"I'm Korean." Glenn says irritably.

"Whatever." Daryl says from behind them and Dante catches Glenn rolling his eyes and can't help the smirk that makes its way onto her face.

"I'm going to open that gate for you, give you a second of suppressing fire, take down whatever I can that is closest to you and then the second you're gone, I close the gate and start shooting anything breakable in the opposite" Dante gestures to the right of the gate, "direction, to create a diversion."

"Th-thanks." Glenn says, nodding. Dante can see him swallow. He's anxious...and why wouldn't he be?

"You'll be okay. We have your back." Dante says quietly, putting a hand on Glenn's shoulder.

Glenn looks surprised for a moment, but then gives her a little smile and nods.

"Les go already, ain't got time to be huggin' up on each other." Daryl growls from behind them and Dante rolls her eyes directly at Glenn who gives a small chuckle in return.

"Okay, let's go!" Dante whispers, going forward towards the gate with Glenn, opening it, taking down the closest walker and then closing the gate, pulling back and hiding behind the trashcan in front of where Daryl is creeping.

After a few moments, She pulls back the string of her crossbow and moves, crouching down low to where she can see past the dumpster, looking for something she can hit in the street to draw the attention of the dead away from Glenn.

She's still scanning the street when she hears movement and Daryl is on it by the time she turns around.

"Woah, don't shoot me! What do you want!?" It's a kid, Daryl has his crossbow trained on his face, mere inches away, Dante lines the kid up in her sight as well.

"I'm lookin' for my brother, he's hurt real bad, you seen him?" Daryl growls.

"Ayudame!" The kid calls out and Dante takes a step forward.

"Shut up, you're gonna bring the geeks down on us." Daryl snarls.

The kid keeps yelling though, calling out "Ayudame!" Over and over.

Daryl tackles him forward and tries to clamp a hand over his mouth.

"Ayudame!" The kid screams, struggling under Daryl's weight.

Dante's trying to decide whether or not she should just shoot the boy but she loses him from her sight as she's tackled to the ground.

"Oof!" Dante yelps, and she's aware she's being kicked in the back.

She tries to crawl for her crossbow but then -

"That's it! That's the bag, Vato, take it! Take it!" She hears suddenly and they leave her alone for long enough for her to see Glenn, just a few feet behind her.

Daryl already has his crossbow raised and shoots the larger guy who had been kicking her square in the butt.

Dante rushes forward and tackles the one with the baseball bat but he's a large man and he pushes her off easily before hauling her to her feet and pinning her arms behind her to use her as a shield.

She can hear a car pulling up and more unfamiliar voices yelling "Come on! Come on!"

She's being dragged backwards through the gate now and she can see Daryl scrabbling to his feet, Glenn is still on the ground, they must have beat the shit out of him too.

"Daryl! Help me!" She calls out, she hadn't wanted to look like a pussy but she's really stuck now, she's really fucked if she gets taken back there now.

"Please! They're men, Daryl!" She screams but then she's being thrown into the car and she's kicking and trying to punch at them before a bag gets thrown over her head.

"DARYL!" She screams but the car is already moving again.

 **X**

Dante still has a bag over her head, only now she's been gagged as well.

She's been tied to a chair for the past...what? Maybe forty minutes?

She's not sure, but now she's being moved again, and through the bag she can see the darkness around her give way to light and she can feel air breezing across the cut in the middle of her shirt and the top of her cleavage and collarbones.

The bag is being whipped off of her head seconds later and she takes in a ragged breath through her nose.

Dante is at least three stories up, precariously forced to the ledge of a roof. Looking down she can see Daryl, Rick, and...

She tries to growl through her gag at the little punk down there who got her into this mess, she lurches forward and her eyes bulge out as she's about to fall but whoever brought her up to the roof grabs where her hands are bound together with duct tape and pulls her back.

"Don't be so eager." The man growls into her ear and then he pulls her back, puts the bag back over her head and she's taken back inside the building.

She's put back into the same uncomfortable chair she was sitting in before, it's hot and muggy and she can barely breathe through her nose beneath the stupid silkish bag on her head.

Her hands still duct taped together behind her back and she can hear the men talking somewhere outside of the room she's in.

After a minute, whoever is in the room with her leaves the room to join the discussion.

The second Dante's certain there are no other presences in the room with her she gets to her feet and struggles to get her hands beneath her ass and then sits back down on the edge of the chair and scrunches her legs up to her chest, allowing her to pull her bound together hands beneath her feet and to the front of her body, then she can remove the bag.

She checks her surroundings, trying to remain calm and then pulls the duct tape off her mouth slowly so she can breathe again. She has to be in some kind of hospital. Or a convalescence home. The room she's in has two beds and curtains and she's sitting in a chair near the window at the end of the room. She can still hear the men talking, they must be down the hall a ways.

Dante goes for her hunting knife but the holster has been removed from her person, she digs inside her boot instead and finds the baby knife that had been her starter knife a long time ago. There it is. She smirks to herself and begins to saw through the duct tape on her hands, cutting through it just as she can hear one of the men say, "Go get her."

Dante rushes as quietly as she can to the front of the room, quickly hiding behind the heavy wooden door and when one of the men enters she slams the door into him and then slams the door shut, locking it quickly before turning to the man who is now on the ground in front of her. He's unarmed.

She gets behind him and helps haul him to his feet, he's not as big as the guy who had grabbed her but he's still heavy and taller than her so he's bent awkwardly backwards as she holds the knife to his throat. The men on the outside of the door must be kicking it or hitting it with something and they're all yelling back and forth to one another in spanish.

"Shut the fuck up! All of you! Listen to me!" Dante screams. The kicking stops. It's all quiet on the western front.

"I have your man here, with a knife to his neck. So here's what you're going to do! I'm going to have him open the door, and I'm going to keep this blade pressed up against his artery, you got me!? You're going to let me walk out of here, and I'm not going to kill your guy. Do we have an agreement!?"

It's quiet for a moment and then suddenly there's more yelling in spanish on the other side of the door and she can hear whoever she's been yelling at call out, "Sorry, Enrique!" and then something in spanish that she can't understand before she hears multiple people running away.

"God damn it!" She hisses. "Don't any of you give a fuck about each other?"

"Si, si, yes, we're all brothers, but they saw someone outside, they had to go." the man, Enrique apparently, answers.

Dante sighs.

"I'm going to let you go now. You make one move and I will hurt you. Do you understand?" She asks roughly.

"Yes. Yes."

Dante removes her knife from his neck and kicks the man forward, across the room from her so she's still blocking the door.

"We're not bad people, senorita, please, please, don't hurt me. We don't want to hurt you or your friends. We just wanted the guns." Enrique tries to explain.

"Where are we? What is this place?" Dante demands. "Some kind of hospital?"

"It's a resting home. My grandpa is here. A lot of our grandparents are here, we come to protect them. Everyone left when the shit hit, you know?"

Dante sees no dishonesty in his eyes.

"You say you're good people, right? I was a CNA for a while a few years ago. Maybe I can be of some assistance while I'm here." She says quietly.

The man stares her down for a moment and then nods at her.

"You won't hurt anyone?" He asks, taking a step forward.

"Not if you don't hurt me." She responds, closing her knife and sticking it into the pocket of her tight, black pants.

Enrique leads her out of the room and gives her a brief tour of the place.

It's really rather small so it doesn't take them long to find a man in a wheelchair with a little crowd of other elderly people around him.

Dante approaches him and they part so that she can get to him.

"He is having asthma attack. Hermana went to get her granson." One of the little old women tells her. Dante nods and turns to look at Enrique.

Enrique had retrieved a baseball bat from somewhere while Dante had been taking in the situation and now she narrows her eyes at him with suspicion.

He shakes his head at her.

"Not for you, damita. Just doing my job. Have to be prepared." He tells her.

Dante feels at her knife through her pants pocket but makes no move.

"I know CPR. Just in case he...doesn't get his medication." She tells him softly. He nods and then they remain quiet for a while.

Dante springs up from where she's sitting at the sight of Rick being led into the room by a little old woman.

Glenn, T-Dog, and Daryl follow closely behind.

Rick looks from Dante to the old man gasping for air in his wheelchair and then shakes his head at her, "What the hell is this?"

"Uhh.. Asthma attack?" Dante replies, shrugging a little.

"We thought you were being eaten alive by dogs, girl!" T-Dog says then.

Dante looks around somewhat confused, finding the only dogs in the room to be a few pomeranians and their chihuahua companions.

"Can I talk to you for a second?" Rick says then, turning on the leader of the gang that had captured Dante and started this whole mess.

Dante, T-Dog, Glenn, and Daryl follow behind Rick and Guillermo to a private room close to the end of the hall so they can talk.

As Rick and Guillermo hash out the details of what exactly their crew is doing here, Dante slinks over to where Daryl is leaned against the wall.

"Did you uh... did you save my baby?" She asks quietly. Glenn looks over at her.

Daryl narrows his eyes at her. "Yer _what_?"

"My _crossbow_."

Glenn snickers at her side and Daryl shoots him a glare.

"What you laughin' at chinaman, them weapons are a lifeline." He growls out lowly and once again Dante is struck with a weird sensation at the sound of his voice, deep, gruff, and just a little gravvely.

"Yeah, I got it waitin' back at the room." He adds, looking at her. "You owe me."

Dante feels a blush creeping into her cheeks, a sensation she's not used to and doesn't know how to hide.

"I'll get right on that." She replies sarcastically but she can't meet his eyes again.

Rick ends up giving a healthy gun and ammunition supply to Guillermo to help him maintain their hold on the building.

They head back to the lab room to get the supplies they had left there, including Dante's pack and her crossbow. At the sight of the thing she drops to her knees and hugs it to her, sighing with relief.

"That thing really is your baby, isn't it?" Glenn asks, teasing.

Dante glares up at him jokingly, "Better than a real baby, isn't it?"

They make their way back to the van, Daryl and Dante had agree that by this time if Merle and Nora were trying to make it to camp, they're either not in the few block radius that they could check or...something else.

However when they get to where their van should have been parked...

"Where the hells our van?" Daryl asks, dumbfounded.

"Oh, don't tell me." Dante sighs out, looking around the area.

"Merle." Rick says for her.

Realization spreads over Daryl's features at that and he turns to look at Rick, "He's gonna be takin' some vengeance back to camp."

"With my sister? Even if he's a hothead, if anyone would be able to talk him out of it, it's her." Dante replies.

"We can't rely on that. C'mon." Rick says, taking off at a jog down the road.

"This is going to be a long night." Glenn murmurs as he begins to jog.


	3. Chapter 3

**Thank you all for reading, things should get more interesting this chapter...**

 **please review and let me know what you think!**

 **X**

 **x**

Glenn was right. It had been a very long night indeed.

Not a single person in camp slept that night, except those that would sleep forever.

The camp was attacked and Dante, Rick, Glenn, Daryl and T-Dog had barely made it up to the camp in time to help fight off the walkers.

Now the sun was already back up and everyone was dealing with the mess that their camp had turned into.

For the first time since they made it back to the quarry, Dante has a chance to really look around in the light.

She creeps up to where Dale is, watching Andrea bent over her dead sister in front of the winnebago.

"Dale...you didn't...my sister never came back?" She asks him quietly.

He glances at her and then shakes his head. Dante nods in understanding.

She helps people move walker bodies into a big pile and they burn them and then she goes to where Andrea is on the ground, clutching onto her dead sister's hand and kneels beside the woman.

"Andrea...can you take care of it?" Dante asks lowly but as nicely as she can.

Andrea glances at Dante from the corner of her eye and then returns her gaze to Amy. "I can do it."

Dante nods and goes to rub her hand on the woman's back but then thinks better of it, retracts her hand and stands, returns to helping the others clear the bodies out.

Once all the dead are either burned or buried, and it's discovered that one of their group members is alive but has been bitten, Rick proposes to the group that they try for the CDC.

"We can't stay here. I think the CDC is our best shot. If there is any military, any government left, they would protect the CDC at all costs." Rick presses.

After a while, Shane even vouches for him, and it's decided that the CDC is their next destination.

X

As Dante folds up her and her sister's tent she touches all of her sister's things carefully, as though they were precious.

Dante packs up the tent into its bag and then her and Nora's things into their respective bags and puts them into her sister's little silver car and then she stops and stares at it. Now she has a problem. She has Nora's car keys, sure, but she had driven her motorcycle here and now she has to decide which vehicle she should take. The noise of the motorcycle wouldn't be a good thing but at the same time it provides her with an extremely gas efficient mode of transportation that can easily weave in between any jammed up areas that they came to. Her motorcycle is good for off roading, giving her far more options than her sister's car in case of emergency or...in case she decides there's no point in travelling with this group anymore. She stands there staring at the car for some time before a voice snaps her from her thoughts.

"You tryna decide if you gonna come?" the gruff voice asks her and Dante turns to look at the muscular man the voice belongs to.

She smiles a little and then looks back at the car.

"I'm trying to decide what to do about...wait...why? Are you going?" She thinks suddenly and looks at him again.

"Yeah." He says shortly.

When she doesn't say anything else he speaks again, not meeting her eyes this time, "Wouldn't mind havin' someone else around who can hold their own, don't get all emotional when someone's bit, can shoot somethin' other than a gun and hunt. Half this group woulda starved without us."

Dante is surprised.

"Are you saying you want me to come?" She asks, incredulously.

"Don't care." He changes his tone suddenly, shifting on his foot, but Dante sees straight through it and smirks.

"Well, since you want me to, I guess I will." She teases.

"Didn't say I wanted you to, said I wouldn't mind." He spits out at her but she's still smiling.

Daryl scoffs and turns to walk away but an idea pops into Dante's mind and she turns and grabs his shoulder.

He looks down at her and narrows his eyes, she releases her grip on his arm.

"That truck is yours, isn't it?"

"Ya."

"Do you think I could fit my motorcycle in the truck bed along with yours?" She asks, trying her best to look cute as she blinks up at him, hopefully.

"That bike's yours?" He asks, surprised.

"Yeah, this car's my sister's. It holds more stuff than I can carry on my bike, I don't have saddlebags or anything." She explains.

He nods at her, chewing on the inside of his cheek, clearly considering the idea.

"You find a way to get it in there, I'll haul it for you." He says finally and then stalks off.

Dante watches him go and then sighs. Great.

X

With the help of Shane, Rick, Glenn, and T-Dog, the five of them manage to get her bike into the bed of Daryl's truck together and once they all walk away to finish packing up their own things and get ready to move out to the CDC, Dante crawls onto the top of the cab of the truck and lights a celebratory cigarette, waiting for Daryl to return so she could throw her accomplishment in his face.

"Get the hell of my truck." His voice comes from behind where she's looking and she jumps a little, turns to look down at him.

He had apparently gone hunting before they got out on the road, he has two squirrels hanging off of his belt. Damn. That was a good idea, why hadn't she htought of that?

Dante hops from the cab to the truck bed and throws out her arms in a "ta-da!" motion. Daryl rolls his eyes at her.

"What'd you do? Bribe everyone in camp?"

"Don't have to bribe people if you're cute. My sister always said that's the only way I made it this far in life." Dante jokes, exhaling smoke as she talks.

"Lemme get one of those." Daryl says, bobbing his chin up at her.

"This is my last pack!" Dante whines, jumping down from the bed of his truck.

"Mighta taken half the camp to get your bike in there but you best believe I can get it out on my own just fine." He threatens and she rolls her eyes.

"I don't believe you would do that, but here." Dante replies, pulling out two cigarettes and handing them off to him.

"Gotta light?"

Dante pulls a purple lighter out of her bra and hands it to him. Daryl stares at the little plastic thing as though it had walker blood all over it.

"What?" Dante asks finally, irritated, when Daryl had still not lit his cigarette a full 60 seconds later and was still staring at the thing in his hand like it was going to bite him.

"It's warm."

Dante rolls her eyes. "Of course it's warm, I just pulled it out of my bra! Keep it in your pocket from now on then, I have plenty more."

Daryl glares at her and lights his cigarette before walking off, stuffing the lighter into his pocket as he goes.

X

An hour later they're on the road, Dante makes up the second to last car in the caravan, right in front of Daryl's truck. She keeps the windows to her sister's little corolla rolled up and paws through her sister's collection of CDs until she lands on one she likes and listens to it while they drive.

Barely an hour later, there's a single honk from the winnebago and all the cars slow down to a stop on the highway. Dante shuts her car off almost thankfully, listening to one of her sister's least favorite but most melancholy CDs had made her begin to cry.

Dante gets out of the car and straps her crossbow over her shoulder just as Daryl comes walking by her. She quickly wipes at her eyes, trying to get the signs of crying off of her face.

"Save it. Already seen you in the side mirrors." Daryl grumbles as he passes her.

Dante swallows hard, looking at his truck and then getting back into Nora's car and looking into the side mirror to find

"God damn it." She whispers to herself, voice still a little hoarse from her crying spell.

From where she sits to drive, Daryl could see her straight in the mirror on the driver's side of the car. She sighs miserably to herself and then gets back out, stalks up to the rest of the group to see what's going on.

X

"Are you sure?" Dante asks Jim quietly, once most of the others have finished saying goodbye to the bitten man leaning against a tree on the side of the highway.

"I could end it. Right now. You don't have to suffer, you don't have to do it. The noise of my crossbow and then it's done, all done. You don't have to go like this." She whispers to him, aware that Daryl is still standing a few feet behind her.

"It's alright. I'm sure. I want to...I want to see...maybe it's better that way. Just to be one of them. I want to see." Jim says, and Dante can't help it, she goes to her knees and hugs the man.

"I barely knew you. I don't think I said more than ten words to you the whole time but I'm sorry." Dante says quietly as she stands back up. "You have my love." She adds, placing a kiss to his sweaty forehead.

"Thank you." Jim says quietly, and Dante gives a little bow before quickly walking past Daryl back to Nora's car.

Daryl looks at her as he passes her on his way to his truck and Dante pretends not to notice, just starts her car up and waits for the caravan to move again.

X

When they get to the CDC the sun is nearly setting.

There are dead walkers strewn all over the street and all up the walkway leading to the CDC's doors and everyone moves in a big group, like a school of fish or something, Dante thinks, trying to keep together to protect themselves.

For the most part all of the walkers are dead but there are a few making their way over to the fresh meat walking around and now banging on the heavy, metal doors of the CDC, drawing their attention.

"You led us into a damn graveyard!" Daryl snarls at Rick as everyone panics.

Dante peers around at their surroundings in the quickly fading light.

There are three tanks abandoned maybe five yards from where they're grouped around the entrance of the building, arguing.

Dante can see a walker approaching nearby a tank so she calls out, "I got it!" And makes her way over to it, pulling out her knife, rather than using her crossbow.

Really, it's an excuse, she wants to get inside the tank. No one is doing any good just arguing and shouting right now, and she's hoping to make something of this trip even if the CDC turns out to be a lost cause - which is what it's looking like at the moment.

Dante crawls up the side of the tank and takes a look around. More walkers are converging on their location. Not too many for them to handle, not as many as had attacked camp the other night but where there are some, there will be more. They need to stop arguing and think of something fast. She looks back to the group at the doors, Daryl is staring at her but everyone else is trying to convince Rick to leave. Rick, himself, is screaming at the door to let them in. Dante frowns.

She taps her knife on the hatch to the tank and waits, putting her ear down to the hatch to listen for growling, scrabbling, anything. She hears nothing. Setting her crossbow down beside the hatch she uses both of her hands to twist open the hatch and then she shines her little flashlight into opening, the smell that wafts out of the thing almost makes her puke but she just gags and pulls a bandana out of her back pocket, tying it around her mouth to try to help her breathe the air as she crawls inside the hatch.

 _Score._

The military man inside had shot himself in the head apparently, Dante doesn't take the time to inspect him for bites, all she needs to know is that he's dead - really dead. His handgun, a military issued beretta still has 14 rounds. Dante clicks on the safety and stuffs it into the front of her pants.

"DANTE, C'MON! Dumb bitch!" She hears a familiar snarl and crawls back out of the tank, finding everyone grabbing their bags and hurrying inside the now open door to the CDC.

Dante grabs her crossbow and slings it over her shoulder before running back to Nora's car and grabbing her duffel, racing to catch up to Daryl who is apparently covering everyone's ass as they go in the door.

As she enters, she's surprised to see a familiar form sliding his keycard in the panel on the side of the door.

"Rick Grimes." Rick says introducing himself, but Dante can't wait.

"Dr. Jenner!" She says excitedly, dropping her bag and crossbow as the doors outside close. She practically skips to the man, she's so excited to see him, she pulls her bandana down off her face, and embraces the man in a tight hug.

"Dante?" He asks in disbelief, lightly hugging her back. The height difference makes it somewhat awkward but not too bad.

He smiles at her as she steps back and she grins back.

"Am I missin' somethin'?" Rick asks.

Dante just shakes her head and Dr. Jenner laughs, but waves for them to follow him as the power cuts down in the room they're in.

They take an elevator down to the labs.

"Where is everyone? All the doctors?" Rick asks.

"It's just me here." Dr. Jenner explains shortly.

"What about the person you were speaking to? 'Vi'?" Lori asks.

"Vi is just an AI: Artificial Intelligence." Dante explains.

"Vi, say hello to our guests. Tell them...welcome." Dr. Jenner says then, looking up at the ceiling.

"Hello Guests. Welcome." The computer voice says through the loudspeakers in the main room.

Dr. Jenner leads them to a little room off the main computer room and begins taking samples of everyone's blood.

"Want me to help you out? Go twice as fast?" Dante suggests, and Dr. Jenner sighs.

"I'm already breaking all the rules letting you guys in here, the least I can do is be thorough. Thanks though." He says.

After they all get their blood taken he leads them to a small kitchenette with a large, round table, where he provides them with food and

"Has the CDC always had this much alcohol? I thought you guys never drank!" Dante teases, grabbing a bottle of Jack Daniels out of the liquor cabinet that Jenner so kindly showed to them.

"Oh, no way, girl, that's mine." Daryl comes up from behind her and snatches the bottle out of her hands.

"Hey! I'll fight you for that." Dante threatens, jokingly.

"Come at me, girl." Daryl retorts, taking a step back towards her and a swig straight from the bottle.

"Calm down, calm down, there's another bottle in the back." Dr. Jenner laughs, patting Dante on the head as he passes her up to take a seat with his own bottle of wine.

Dante glares at him but finds the bottle and takes it for her own, along with a pack of crackers and perches on the kitchen counter, apart from everyone at the table and watches them all drink and laugh and chatter together, contentedly.

"You know in Italy children have a glass of wine with dinner. In France too." Dale teases, pouring a glass of wine for Lori who immediately covers up her son's cup.

"Well, when Carl is in Italy or France he can have some." Lori retorts.

"Oh, come on." Rick suggests, and finally Lori gives in and lets Carl try some.

"That's nasty!" Carl whines, scrunching his face up in disgust.

Dante giggles, loud and high pitched and everyone in the room laughs.

"Stick to soda pop, little man." Shane says, chuckling at Carl's face.

"Not you, Glenn. Keep drinkin' little man, I want to see how red your face can get." Daryl taunts.

Dante giggles again, feeling warm with the whiskey inside her.

Rick suddenly clinks his knife against his wine glass and stands. "I don't think we've yet thanked our host properly."

"He's more than just our host." T-Dog says.

"Booyah!" Daryl exclaims, raising his bottle of Jack up in a toast as he paces the room.

"Booyah!" Everyone agrees, lifting their respective drinks.

"So when ya gonna tell us what the hell happened here, doc?" Shane asks suddenly. The room falls quiet.

"All the...the other doctors that were supposed to be figuring out what happened...where the hell are they?" Shane continues.

"We're celebrating, Shane. We don't need to do this right now." Rick says sternly, looking at his friend.

"Whoa, wait a second this is why we're was your move to find all the answers...and instead we found... him. Found one man. Why?" Shane continues.

Dante narrows her eyes at him from across the room.

"Well, when things got bad a lot of people just left. Went off to be with their families." He looks pointedly at Dante before continuing. "And when things got worse, when the Military cordon got overrun...the rest of them bolted."

"Every last one?" Shane asks, disbelieving.

"No. Many couldn't face walking out the door..they...opted out. There was a rash of suicides. That was a bad time." Jenner says quietly, looking away.

"You didn't leave. Why not?" Andrea asks then.

"I just kept working. Hoping to do some good." Jenner answers.

"Speaking of...where is your sister, Dante?" He asks then, and everyone turns to look at where Dante is, still perched on the counter.

She takes another big swig of Jack, wincing at the burning sensation in her throat before replying.

"After I came and made her leave here, we tried to find the refugee center that was supposed to be set up in Atlanta. Only there wasn't one. We found this group of..." The group looks like they're braced for harsh words so Dante fights them down from her lips, "survivors. And we...survived for a little while...long story short she got...'SEPARATED' and now I don't know. I don't know where she is." She finishes quietly, taking another drink.

"I should have let her stay. She could have helped you. She would have been better off here, I don't even know." Dante feels her voice starting to break, a lump rising in her throat so she stops talking then.

Dr. Jenner stands and goes over to her, helps her down from the counter and then hugs her tightly.

"It's okay. She was one of the smartest people here, she'll survive." He says, nodding, but Dante doesn't think that he even believes the words himself, so how can she possibly believe him?

"C'mon." He says then, gesturing for the group to follow him as he leads them to the employee living corridor.

"Most of the facility powered down including housing, so you'll have to make do here. The couches are comfortable but there are cots in storage if you like. There's a rec room down the hall that your kids might enjoy. Just don't plug in the video games or anything that draws power, okay?" Jenner explains as he leads them down the hallway packed with small, almost dorm styled rooms.

"Same with the showers, if you take a shower, go easy on the hot water." He adds, turning to show them where the shower rooms are.

"Hot water?" Glenn asks, turning to look at the group incredulously.

"That's what the man said." T-Dog answers, grinning.

Pretty soon after, Dante finds herself gulping down more whiskey in the shower room. Each stall is separated by a wall but they are unisex so there are men in the room as well.

Dante finds an empty stall down the second row of showers and goes to it, setting her crossbow on the shelf at the end designed for clothes and turns on the water, testing the temperature before she begins to pull off her clothes.

She's stripped down to her bra and panties when Daryl walks up, he catches sight of her and immediately blushes, turns on his heel to stomp away.

"Wait!" Dante hisses.

He turns back towards her but keeps his eyes focused on the fluorescent lights flickering overhead.

Dante can't help but let out a drunk little giggle.

"Don't worry. It's okay. Come shower. I won't bother you." She says softly.

Daryl seems to consider it for a moment, readjusting the strap of his crossbow and swishing his bottle of Jack before shaking his head in her general direction.

Dante closes the fifteen foot gap between them quickly and grabs onto his shirt before he can leave.

She's drunk, she realizes suddenly, when she becomes aware of just how close to the man she really is, hanging onto his shirt like this, staring up into his face. She blushes suddenly aware of her exposure, wearing just her locket, a bra, and a thong, but he's blushing furiously too, still trying his best to avoid eye contact.

She pulls him by the bottom of his shirt towards the shower stall beside hers. Surprisingly, he doesn't fight her.

He must be pretty drunk by this point too. His bottle looks half empty at least.

"Crossbow goes here." Dante says softly, gesturing to the shelf where she had laid her own to rest.

"Surprised you could reach it." He mumbles, putting his crossbow up on the wooden shelf next to hers.

"Watch your mouth." Dante teases, pulling off her bra and watching his face redden even more.

He takes a huge swig of his whiskey before beginning to unbutton his shirt.

Dante is completely caught in the moment, watching his large, muscled arms work at the buttons on the front of his shirt and then he finally makes eye contact with her.

"You gonna just stand there and stare at me?" He asks, annoyed.

Dante is shocked, she shakes her head, and then goes for her own whiskey, takes another huge swig and then puts the lid on it, setting it back down on the ground outside of her shower stall.

"Sorry. I guess I got...distracted." She breathes out and he stares at her.

She pulls off her thong and can feel his eyes on her ass as she steps into her shower and slides the shower door shut and then she almost forgets about their interaction completely.

The shower feels incredible, and she revels in it, pulling out her hair tie and scrubbing out her hair, feeling completely unapologetic when she realizes that she's made the floor to the stall turn a little blue from her hair.

She turns the shower off and steps out, grabbing her towel from the towel rack beneath the shelf that now only holds her crossbow and drying herself off, she grabs another towel and uses it on her hair, once again, feeling unapologetic about how blue the white towel turns.

She gulps down more whiskey, now feeling rather drunk and finding her thoughts wandering to Daryl once again.

Dante ties the towel around her body, and carries her clothes, crossbow and whiskey back to her room, which is more challenging than she expected it to be in her drunken state. She passes Dale as she goes to her door and drops her things inside, other than her bottle of Jack and then she clutches onto her towel to keep it up, rushing to catch Dale before he rounds the corner.

"Dale!" She hisses, drunkenly.

"Well, hello there, you've had a bit, haven't you?" He says, grinning at her.

"Daryl took something of mine, have you seen him?" She asks, giggling a little.

"No, can't say that I have, not since dinner. But I'm pretty sure his room is the second to last on the left here." He gestures to the hall she just came from and she nods, fiddling with her locket.

They both hear the sounds of someone vomiting coming from the room they're standing in front of and then Dale is immediately distracted, going to the door and calling to who he, of course, knows the occupant is. "Andrea?"

Dante has other plans, however, and she heads down the hall to the second to last door and knocks on it, louder than she means to, taking another drink of whiskey and clutching onto her towel.

Daryl opens the door, barely a crack, and squints down at her.

He's still wet from the shower and he's shirtless, wearing only his pants.

Shane comes stalking by at that moment and so Dante hurriedly says, "I wanted to ask your advice about something really quick please?" Trying to seem as innocent as possible. Daryl narrows his eyes at Shane as he passes and then opens the door a little more so Dante can come in.

He closes the door behind her and then leans against it.

"What'sit?" He slurs at her.

Ahh, so he is drunk.

She takes another huge swig of her JD before setting the bottle on the little nightstand beside the cot he had set up in the center of the room and then she steps towards the man. He kind of flinches away from her, which makes her feel bad but then she gently places a hand on his chest and stands on her tip toes to get up close to his face.

"You can tell me to leave if you want." she says huskily before pressing a kiss to his neck.

He doesn't tell her to leave, and so she continues to kiss his neck and then she bites his neck and makes the tiniest of moans and so she bites harder and then he growls at her, pulling her towel off and shoving her backwards, where she stumbles and falls onto his cot. He's on top of her in mere seconds, smelling of whiskey, like she's sure that she must as well.

He begins placing rough kisses all over her face in a sloppy sort of way that makes her think that he hasn't done this before, which is surprising to her.

She moans when he kisses her neck though and then he bites it like she had done to him and she moans louder.

He hastily undoes his pants and she finds that he's not even wearing boxers beneath his pants at the moment and his cock immediately springs forward, ready to go.

"You sure?" Daryl slurs at her and she stares up into his eyes. They're so blue, like the sky, or a clear beach. They take her far away and she barely finds her way back to reality enough to nod.

He's straddling her now and his cock is mere inches away from her opening but he stops, goes to cup her breasts and then pulls away, looks unsteadily towards the wall instead.

"Touch me. It's okay." she breathes out, propping herself up on her elbows to reach his hands.

After she's given him permission though he wastes no time, and he grabs her breasts and squeezes them.

"Oh fuck" he groans out and then he slips himself inside her. It's not her first time and he feels fantastic, warm and hard and perfectly sized inside her and she moans louder than before.

He lets his left hand slide down to her waist where he grabs on and continues to squeeze her breast with his right hand.

"Like that?" He murmurs.

"Getting cocky now, hmm?" She mumbles back to him and he squeezes her breast again while thrusting inside of her.

"Ohh, Daryl!" She moans and he smirks down at her, leaning in to bite her neck again, making her moan louder until she clamps her own jaws down on his neck and sucks, hard, making him groan in return.

He begins thrusting inside of her in an even pattern, and then he begins speeding up, his legs are shaking, she can tell and she's practically vibrating, herself, moaning louder and louder until he finally clamps a hand over her mouth, making her buck her hips up to meet his and then he moans again and then she cums, her hips bucking wildly as she goes through ecstasy, his dick still sliding over her clit, making her pleasure continue all the way until he cums himself.

He thrusts a few more times until he's completely through and then he huffs and squeezes into the space on the cot beside her, both of them panting like dogs.

"Jesus Christ, that was incredible." She says, reaching for her bottle of Jack and pulling the towel that must have been his up from the floor to cover herself with.

Daryl watches her for a moment out of the corner of her eye, almost gauging her. It's the way that Dante looks at people when she thinks that they might be lying and it surprises her.

"Ya mean it?" He asks her quietly, his deep, gravelly voice makes her think she could probably go another round.

"Definitely." She answers, taking a swig out of her bottle.

He continues to stare at her out of the corner of his eye suspiciously for a moment before putting his hand out for the bottle.

"What? You have your own!"

He huffs at her but then gets up, pulls his boxers on from the floor and goes to the other little table in the room where his bottle is sitting, still open.

Dante watches him, noting the scars all over his back.

Daryl must realize that she's seen them when he turns back around because he reaches to touch them with the hand not clutching the liquor bottle. He looks around sort of awkwardly for a moment and then comes back to lie down next to her again.

"What made you do that?" He asks sort of softly, softly for him at least.

"I..." she considers for a moment. 'I like you'? 'I think you're sexy'? 'I'm drunk' all filter through her mind before she finally just asks:

"What is the right answer for you? What is the best thing that I could say right now?"

Daryl takes another swig of his Jack and moves his free hand up to rest behind his head.

"Don't know. Never done this before." He grumbles quietly, and when she turns her head to look at him, he looks somewhat embarrassed.

Dante turns to rest on her side, moving the towel so that it remains covering her and propping herself up on her elbow so she can look at him. He watches her out of the corner of his eye.

"Then I'll just tell you everything I've been thinking, I guess. Why not? I'm drunk, I think you're...I think you're one of the best people I could have gotten caught in this mess with. The apocalypse, I mean, not the sex, that was great."

A light blush covers his cheeks and he looks away, taking another swig from his bottle.

"And I...I hope you don't... I mean..ahh shit, this is the worst part, I hate this part." She groans, rolling back onto her back and taking another huge gulp of whiskey.

He rolls onto his side and takes the position she had been in before.

"Tell me." He growls out, sounding as drunk as she feels.

"I like you." Dante says to the ceiling, unable to meet his eyes again. "I like you, that's the hardest part."

When he doesn't say anything for a minute Dante nods to herself and grabs the towel, wrapping it around herself the way it was when she first walked in and taking her liquor bottle, he stands up and stares at her from across the room, watching her, she nods once more and then leaves the room, without another word.


	4. Chapter 4

**Thank you for reading! Please review and let me know what you think! If you like it, have suggestions, just want to say hey,**

 **I really appreciate it!**

 **Thank you!**

 **Xx**

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"Ohhh, Jesus." Dante moans as she enters the kitchen, trying to shield her eyes from the fluorescent lights beaming down rays of pain into her skull.

"See, Glenn, you're not the only one." Lori jokes.

"Ha fuckin' ha." Dante grumbles sarcastically as she makes a wobbling bee line for the coffee pot.

She pours the hot liquid into one of the little disposable cups sitting beside the coffee maker and then pours half a container of sugar on top of it.

"Don't want any coffee with your sugar there?" Daryl asks and Dante jerks to look at him and spills the piping hot liquid all over her hand.

"Damn, didn't mean to scare you." He grumbles, reaching into his back pocket to hand her a rag, trying to help her clean up her hand.

"I'm fine." Dante says quickly, moving away, spilling more coffee onto her hand but trying to ignore it.

She makes her way over to the counter and sets her coffee on it before jumping up to perch on it again.

T-Dog walks around to her with a plate of eggs a moment later but she can't even stand the smell of them.

"No, no, thank you." She shakes her head.

"Good for a hangover." T-Dog says cheerily, pushing the plate towards her anyways.

"Shit, I'll take 'em." That stupid rough voice says suddenly and then Daryl is in front of her, scooping up the plate.

He peers up into her eyes and how strange it feels to finally have someone looking up at her instead of the other way around for once.

Daryl looks like he's about to say something but then Dr. Jenner enters the room, going for the coffee pot, Dale immediately rises to speak to the doctor.

"Doctor, I don't mean to slam you with questions first thing..."

"But you will anyways." Jenner says, good naturedly, pouring coffee into his cup.

"Look, we didn't come here for the eggs." Andrea adds, looking annoyed.

Dr. Jenner nods at the lot of them and then gestures with his hand for them to follow him.

Dante hops off the counter and watches Daryl scoop the rest of her eggs into his mouth before wiping his hands down his pants. She grabs her coffee and then follows the group back into the main computer lab.

"Vi Give me a playback of TS-19." Dr. Jenner says as he approaches the computers in the front of the room.

An image of a blue brain, looking something like an MRI comes into view on the large screen in the front of the room, and everyone settles down to watch it.

"Few people ever got to see this." He says, "Very few."

"Is that a brain?" Carl asks, smiling a little.

"Yes. It's an extraordinary one." Dr. Jenner responds, smiling at the screen a little. Dante comes to stand just a few feet away from him, sipping at her coffee like it's air.

"Not that it matters in the end." He adds sadly, speaking more to himself than anyone else in the room.

"Take us in for a peek." He says, louder, speaking to the AI system.

"Enhanced Internal View." The computer voice responds, and the image on the screen zooms into the person's head.

The view inside the person's brain is stunning to say the least.

Bright lights flash down the dendrite of each cell, making it look like they're jumping synapses from one neuron to the other.

"Wow." Dante breathes out.

"What are all those lights?" Shane asks from a few feet behind them.

"It's a person's life. Experiences, memories...that's everything. Somewhere in all that organic wiring all those ripples of light...is you- the thing that makes you unique. and Human."

"You don't make sense...ever?" Daryl asks then, Dante huffs out a little laugh.

"Those are synapses. Electric impulses in the brain that carry all the messages. They determine everything a person says, does, or thinks from the moment of birth to the moment of death."

"Death? That's what this is?" Rick asks then, "A vigil?"

"Yes." Jenner says quietly. "Or rather the playback of a vigil."

"This person died?" Andrea asks, coming forward, "Who?"

"Test subject 19." Dr. Jenner answers, staring up at the screen with a sort of painful longing painted on his face, "Someone who was bitten and infected and volunteered to have us...record the process... Vi...scan forward to the first event."

The computer fast forwards the video by at least half an hour and all of the pretty lights inside this person's brain are quickly fading, burning out like dying stars.

"What is that?" Someone asks, Dante doesn't turn to see who.

"It infects the brain like meningitis. The adrenal glands hemorrhage, the brain goes into shut down and then the major organs. Then death. ...Everything you ever were and ever would be...gone." He explains quietly.

Andrea looks close to tears and Lori speaks up then, "She lost somebody two days ago...her sister."

Dante squeezes her eyes shut and swallows down the lump that is quickly rising in her throat. She won't cry in front of these people.

"I lost somebody too." Jenner says, looking into Andrea's face, "I know how devastating it is."

The doctor steps forward again, looking up at the screen, that same melancholy look stuck on his face.

"Scan to the second event." He commands.

"The resurrection times vary wildly. We have reports of it happening in as little as three minutes , the longest we heard of was eight hours. In the case of this patient it was two hours...one minute...seven seconds."

The way he says it...no...Dante thinks, but then...yes. Of course, why hadn't she realized before?

Dante turns to look at Jenner, observe that sadness on his face, radiating off his being.

"It restarts the brain?" Lori asks, incredulously.

"No, just the brainstem. It basically gets them up and moving." Jenner explains.

"But they're not alive?" Rick asks.

"You tell me." Jenner gestures to the screen.

"It's nothing like before. Most of that brain is dark."

"Dark, lifeless...dead." Jenner agrees, "The frontal lobe, the neocortex, the human part - that doesn't come back. The _you_ part. It's just a shell..driven by mindless instinct."

A bright blue light flashes and goes straight through the front of the patient's head and out the other side, turning every part of the brain black as night.

"What was that?" Carol asks, concern invading her soft features.

"He shot his patient in the head." Andrea answers after a moment of silence. "Didn't you?" She turns to look at him.

"Vi, power down the screen and the workstations." Jenner commands, avoiding the question.

"You have no idea what it is, do you?" Andrea accuses then, stepping forward.

"I'm sorry, do _you_?" Dante hisses at her, making Andrea take a step back.

"It could be microbial, viral, parasitic, fungal."

"Or the wrath of God." Jaqui adds.

"There is that." Jenner agrees.

" _Somebody, somewhere_ must know _something_." Andrea pressures.

"There are others, right? Other facilities?" Carol asks softly.

"There may be some. People like me." Jenner answers quietly.

"How can you not know?" Rick asks, moving towards the man.

"So what you're really saying is that there's nothing left anywhere? Right?"

"Man, I'm gonna get shitfaced drunk. Again." Daryl says from behind her.

"You must know something!" Rick presses, taking another step towards the man.

Dante side steps to stand in front of Jenner.

"I think you all need to _lay off him_. Just because it was his job doesn't mean that he could magically make answers of nothing. There was a whole team of researchers here, my sister included. ALL OF THEM could not figure this out. You don't get to throw it in his face just because he's the only one left. You don't get to do that." She says, loudly, glancing from Andrea to Rick, to Shane.

The room goes quiet for a few moments.

"I know this has been taxing for you, doctor, but I do have one more question..." Dale says then.

Dante shoots him a dirty look but he ignores it.

"That clock has been counting down. What happens at zero?" He continues, gesturing to the large clock on the wall at the end of the room.

"The basement generators run out of fuel." Jenner answers shortly before quickly walking around the workstations, making his way out of the room.

"VI, what happens when the power runs out?" Rick shouts up at the ceiling.

"Facility wide decontamination will occur." The robotic voice answers.

"Everyone stay calm, we're gonna go check out those basement generators." Rick says to the group. "Shane? Glenn?"

Dante stalks off back towards the rooms. She has a feeling she should start getting her bags together.

That clock says that they have one hour remaining.

She packs up her few possessions pretty quickly and then she heads back to the kitchen, grabbing as many of the remaining bottles of alcohol as she can and taking them back to her room to stash them in her bag.

"See you had the same idea."

Dante jumps and nearly drops the bottle of tequila she had been clutching in her hand.

Daryl stands leaning against the open doorway to her room, he has a bottle of something in his hand but she can't read the label on it.

"Y-yeah." she stutters, popping the stopper out of the bottle of tequila and taking a swig.

He enters her room then and leans up against the wall by the door.

"Your sister..." He starts and Dante immediately drinks some more of the tequila even though she's not fond of the substance.

"At least she did some good in the world. Or tried to. Workin' here. And then you came and got her so she didn't end up like Jenner." He continues, taking a swig out of his own bottle.

"You don't get it, do you?" Dante says quietly, standing up fully from where she was crouched over her duffel bag.

"It doesn't matter. I should have let her stay here, she was smarter than Jenner. Nora and Violet...Jenner's wife. They practically ran this place, the two of them. Those two did more than all of the other workers combined, I would swear by it and I'm sure Jenner would too. If I had let her stay here she wouldn't have gotten fucking left behind in Atlanta. She might have been able to find a cure, figure something out! But no! I did that! I thought I would protect her, I though it would be better, _I_ fucked her over. As much as I want to blame Rick, or T-Dog, or even your brother, Daryl, I can't, because I know the truth. I did it. I should have left her here. She would have at least been _safe_. Instead of...instead of probably being fucking dead!"

Dante shakes her head and tries to blink the tears away but they leak out of her eyes anyways, she brushes them away roughly and takes another gulp of tequila.

When she chances a glance at the man who had come to her room, he's just standing there, staring at her somewhat wide eyed.

"Din't mean to-"

"It doesn't matter." Dante says quickly, bending to zip up the duffel and then quickly leaving the room with the tequila in her hand still.

Dante makes her way to the rec room and looks over the books. She's alone. No one else is in there, they're probably all doing what she had done, packing their bags, feeling nervous.

She gulps down as much tequila as she can take and then paws at a rough looking copy of Frankenstein sitting on the shelf.

She can no longer stop the tears running down her cheeks and in this moment she no longer cares.

She sits down then and drinks a little more tequila, staring at the Frankenstein book for a while, feeling bleary, buzzed and sad.

Frankenstein was one of her sister's favorites.

She stands up somewhat unsteadily and makes her way back over to the bookshelf.

Dante pulls the book from the shelf and opens it, huffs out a sad little laugh.

Scribbled inside on the flyleaf of the book is: _Nora Sarante_

in her sister's stupidly pretty handwriting.

Dante gulps down more tequila and rubs her fingers over her sister's name, feeling the indent from the pen Nora had used once, long ago. Dante barely contains a sob as she clutches the book to her chest and hugs it tightly to her, wishing it was her sister instead.

She takes it and the tequila with her, going to sit at a miniature grand piano in the corner of the rec room.

She gulps down more tequila and tries to ignore the burning sensation in her throat and the tears still leaking out of her eyes as she sets the book down where sheet music is supposed to go.

Dante's fingers fumble on the keys clumsily at first and then they find their places on the ivory marks and she begins to play.

She plays softly at first and then as the tequila courses through her bloodstream she begins hitting the keys a little harder, bobbing her head as her fingers find their rhythm and after half a minute or more of intro she begins to sing - quietly, her voice shaking.

 _"And it came to me then, that every plan..is a tiny prayer to father time. As I stared at my shoes. In the ICU that reeked of piss and 409...I rationed my breaths. As I said to myself..no, I've already taken too much today. As each descending peak on that LCD...took you a little farther away from me...away from me."_

The lights dim at that moment but Dante continues to play.

The song that she is playing is called "What Sarah Said" By Death Cab For Cutie" if you listen, it will give you a good setting feel, I promise

 _"Amongs the vending machines and...year old magazines. In a place where we only say goodbye. It stung like a violent wind...that our memories depend...on a faulty camera in our mind. Ohhh but I knew that youuu were a truth. I would rather lose! Than to have never lain beside it all! And I looked around at all the eyes on the ground...as the TV entertained itself... Cause there's no comfort in the waiting rooooom. Just nervous pacers bracing for bad newssss. Then the nurse comes round and everyone lifts their heads... But I'm thinking of what...Nora said."_

Dante sniffles.

 _"Love is watching...someone die."_

Dante breaks down then, crashing her head down on the keys and making discordant notes erupt from the piano, sobbing into the hard keys.

She stays there for a few minutes, wallowing in sadness and self pity, before sitting back up sniffling and wiping at her nose and eyes with the sleeve of her plaid overshirt. She's aware that she can hear some sort of a clanging noise coming from another room and so she takes another drink of the tequila but leaves it at the piano, patting the top of the thing as she walks away, like she's leaving an old friend in a cemetery, and goes to find the noise.

She's not entirely surprised to find a heavy metal door similar to the shutters outside of the building blocking the doorway that used to lead to the main room with all the workstation computers and she can hear frantic yelling and talking on the other side of the door.

The clinking noise has stopped now but she's sure that this is where it had come from.

"DARYL! DARYL STOP!" She can hear people screaming inside.

Dante huffs out a little laugh, wiping at her eyes once again to make sure they're staying dry.

She can hear loud stomping footsteps coming towards the door and she waits, clutching the Frankenstein book to her chest.

The clinking starts again and she can hear grunting.

Someone must be hitting the other side of the door with something.

She takes a step forward and cautiously reaches a hand forward and knocks on the metal.

The clinking stops. Dante can hear someone touching the other side of the door, it's almost like they're rubbing the door or something.

 _No._ She thinks, _like someone's putting their ear to it._

Dante breathes in a ragged breath and finds the courage to speak. "Daryl? Is that you?"

"Dante?" The rough voice returns from the other side, muffled by the great door.

"Daryl! What's going on!?" She asks, and as she raises her voice she feels the lump returning to her throat.

"Jenner's got us all locked in here, this place is gonna blow!"

Dante swallows and lurches forward, putting a hand on the door to steady herself.

She's surprised when she feels movement and then vibration on the door near the same spot that her hand is.

He's putting his hand on the other side.

A moment later the door hisses and Dante steps back, the door lifts and Daryl is there standing on the other side, holding an axe in one hand. He goes forward and to Dante's surprise he grabs her, squeezes her close to him for just a moment and then he steps back and calls to the others.

"C'mon, we gotta go! C'mon! let's get outta here!"

Dante rushes past him into the room.

"Dante! Get back here!" Daryl yells, rushing after her.

"Go, Daryl! I'll catch up to you!" She calls over her shoulder and in those brief seconds she can see him struggling with the idea, not sure if he should go or not but then he's out the door with the rest of them.

"Dr. Jenner, please. Don't do this. Violet wouldn't want this." She pressures, clutching onto the arms of Jenner's chair.

"Violet's not here anymore, Dante. Neither is Nora."

Tears make their way back to Dante's eyes.

"I don't know that! I don't know that and I have to stay alive for as long as I can until I DO know! Come with me, Edwin, please!"

"I'm staying, Dante." He says with calm finality. "If you knew Nora was dead, would you think any differently?"

Dante gulps and stands up fully, trying to piece her thoughts together.

She would stay. If she knew Nora was dead. Yes. She would stay.

She turns to look at where Dale and Andrea are on the floor. Andrea is watching her closely.

"No." She says, turning to look back at Jenner. "If I knew she was dead...I would still know that she would want me to keep going. She saw good in me, even if I didn't see it, even if I still don't. She always saw it. She would want me to keep going, so I will. I love you, Edwin." She adds then, placing a chaste kiss to the doctor's forehead before running from the room.

She grabs her duffel bag from the floor of her room and then races for the exit, finding a window smashed near the front doors and jumping through it, rushing towards where Nora's car is at the back of the caravan, juggling the book and the bag, trying to get Nora's keys out of the side pocket of the duffel bag.

"C'MON!" Daryl is yelling and racing towards her suddenly, he grabs the bag from her hands and pushes her forward, towards his truck. He tosses her duffel bag into the back of his truck and she gets into his truck, they both put their heads down, she's still clutching the book in her hands. She leans towards the middle between the passenger seat and the driver's seat and Daryl bends over her, shielding her, she realizes.

Then the loud boom that everyone had been waiting for happens, the sounds of shattering glass seem to be coming from everywhere at once and Dante is shaking.

After a few moments Daryl's presence is removed from her and she lifts her head to see Andrea and Dale scrabbling into the RV.

She can't help but to grin, still breathing heavily.

She jumps out of the truck and slams the door behind her, jumping onto the back tire of the truck to reach her duffel bag and finding her crossbow also in the bed of the truck. She grabs them both and pulls the keys from the duffel bag, rushing to her car just as she hears the engine of the winnebago turn over.

"Hey, that's the second time I saved your baby!" Daryl calls to her.

"I owe you!" She calls back, sliding into the driver's seat of Nora's car, throwing the duffel bag into the back seat and putting her crossbow into the passenger's seat along with the book, leting her hand slide over the front cover of the book as she starts her car up and follows the caravan out of the city.


	5. Chapter 5

**Thank you so much to those of you who reviewed!**

 **I really appreciate your encouragement, thank you all for reading!**

 **Please review to let me know how I'm doing/give suggestions/let me know if you like it! Thanks!**

 **Xx**

 **x**

They're barely at the city limits when Dante hears the honk. She peeks into her rearview mirror and Daryl nods at her.

Dante slows Nora's car down and then parks it, the rest of the caravan in front of them doing the same.

They all congregate beside the winnebago.

"Been ridin' red for half an hour. Truck ain't gonna make it much farther. Gonna take my brother's bike outta the back, ride that instead. Truck takes too much gas." Daryl explains.

Rick nods in understanding, looking around at the few abandoned cars nearby them.

"I think we should all try to cut down on the vehicles. We don't have the gas to spare anymore. We should all try to ride in as few as we can." Rick agrees.

"I can give up the jeep. Ride along in the winnebago." Shane says, nodding.

"Nora's car is barely two lines above the E. If Daryl's truck can't make it then I'm going to take my bike too. Siphon the fuel out of the car and see who needs it most." Dante adds and Rick nods to her.

"T, can you get the hose?"

Dante packs up all her stuff and then struggles with Nora's duffle bag, still in the back of the car. She unzips it and goes through the items slowly, touching each thing like it's precious, the way she had done with the Frankenstein book. A huge part of her wants to take all of her sister's stuff, keep it. The rest of her knows that it's useless and it's just more stuff for her to carry that she doesn't even need.

Dante looks through all of the items carefully, picking out her sister's water purification tablets and flashlight, and a photo of the two of them from the bottom of the bag and stuffing them in her own backpack.

Lastly, Dante takes a few of her sister's dirty shirts and holds them close to her face.

They still smell of Nora.

She inhales deeply and closes her eyes, imagining her sister's beautiful face. Her voice, her laugh, her smile. Even the way she sounded when she scolded Dante for doing something stupid.

When Dante reopens her eyes Daryl is staring at her from where he stands in the bed of his truck and Dante quickly takes two of the shirts and stuffs them into her own duffel bag along with the Frankenstein book and then she takes the bag and her backpack and puts them into Dale's winnebago.

Shane and Rick help Dante get her bike out of the back of Daryl's truck and pretty soon they're on the road again.

She and Daryl are at the front of the caravan now, riding their bikes together, leading the pack down the highway out of the city.

With her sunglasses on, Daryl can't see her eyes but she can see the way he keeps glancing at her.

She tries to race him at one point but he makes an annoyed face at her and then she pulls back and just rides along side him until they get to a clump of abandoned cars in the middle of the highway.

"Can you find a way around?" Dale yells to them from the window of the RV.

Dante nods and follows Daryl as he pulls his motorcycle around the RV and begins leading their caravan through a narrow path until they both hear a blast and an awful sputtering and whining sound from behind them.

When Dante looks back there's smoke pluming from the front of the winnebago and Daryl is killing the engine on his bike so she does the same, walking it down to a stop and then flicking down the kickstand.

As soon as Daryl is off his bike he's going through cars so Dante grabs her backpack from the RV and begins doing the same.

She makes her way forward, scouring cars for any worthwhile supplies, finding mostly dead bodies as she goes.

Dante's just pulling her head out of the hatchback of a little silver car that reminds her of the one she had left behind a few miles back, feeling pleased with the machete and few canned goods she had found when she's suddenly being violently pulled forward by the front of her shirt.

"Hey!" She yelps, grasping for the crossbow that she's being driven away from.

"Shh." Daryl hisses, putting a finger to his lips, and then he jerks his head backwards in the direction of the winnebago, she glances that way and sees a crowd of walkers quickly heading towards them.

"Jesus." Dante breathes out, there must be more than fifty of them.

She slips down beneath the car that she had just been scavenging and crawls beneath it, pulling out her knife, and trying to calm her breathing.

Daryl's gone already, like a ghost.

Dante can just barely see him creeping down between the cars towards where Dante can hear a living person groaning.

It takes a few heart pumping minutes for the herd of walkers to pass by the car and then she rolls out from beneath it, grabbing her crossbow first thing.

She can hear whimpering down by the RV so she slips on her backpack and creeps between the cars, trying to be as stealthy as Daryl had been, while rushing towards the sound.

She gets to the edge of the highway in time to see Rick sliding down the dirt into the forest and she jumps the metal bars of the highway, rushing down after him, her feet sliding in the dirt.

"My baby!" Is all she hears as she slips down the steep hill, her feet fumbling to keep her upright as she races into the forest.

It doesn't take Dante long to get to where Rick is crouched on the ground beating in a walker's head with a rock and she takes down the one that is quickly approaching him with a single shot from her crossbow.

Rick stares up at her from where he's on the ground, panting for breath.

"Thanks."

She nods at him, going to the walker and holding it down with her boot as she yanks her bolt from its head.

"Did you see Sophia?" He asks as she helps him to his feet.

Dante shakes her head, wiping off the bloody arrow on her already filthy pant leg.

Together they double back to a creek where Rick looks beneath a little mossy overhang. Dante watches him curiously.

Rick runs his dirty hands through his hair, looking frustrated before coming back to where she's standing at the edge of the water.

"Can you track her?" He asks.

Dante begins looking around the bank for prints.

"Yeah, I can see her trail but to be honest Daryl's a lot better at tracking people than I am." She admits.

They make their way back up to the highway and Carol runs to them, clutching a hand to her heart.

Her eyes are red from crying and she peeks around them. When she doesn't see her daughter new tears begin to make their way down the woman's cheeks.

Dante can't meet her eyes.

Rick immediately realizes that Sophia isn't with her mother and begins walking around, looking like he's prepping himself for action.

"Daryl! I want you and Dante to come with me. I asked Sophia to wait down beneath the brush by a creek while I led the walkers away from her. Told her to make her way back to the highway once it was clear. When I got back she was gone. She couldn't have went far. The sooner we get lookin' the better."

Daryl makes his way over to them and quickly hops the guard rail.

"Please be careful." Dante hears Lori whisper to her husband, "And bring her back."

Rick leans close and allows his wife to kiss his forehead, Dante makes her way back down the dirt slope and into the forest, Daryl's right on her heels.

"Hey." He says gruffly, Dante glances at him. "You alrigh?"

"I will be when we find Sophia." Dante answers shortly, leading him to the little creek that Rick had apparently left the girl at.

"I mean 'bout your sister." Daryl says then and Dante stops, looks at him.

"I'm okay. Or...I'm trying to be." She answers. He's staring at her hard, making her feel small in front of him.

"I don't know." She admits then, shrugging a little and turning back to get to the creek.

Daryl begins tracking immediately after Rick catches up to them and explains what the situation was.

"She did just fine up until right here...all she had to do was keep going but she veered off to the right." Daryl explains, crouching down to look at the tracks that Dante can barely see.

"Walkers?" Rick asks, looking down at the dirt blindly.

"Nah, her tracks are the only ones here." Daryl answers.

"Should we all keep searching? What do you want us to do?" Dante asks, shouldering her crossbow.

Rick puts his hands on his waist, looking through the trees towards the highway.

"No. I'm going to go back to the highway. Try to keep everyone calm. Let them know that I've asked you and Daryl to keep looking. I'll make sure everyone stays steady and doesn't panic, keep them busy, scavenging and working on the cars." Rick explains.

"You got it." Daryl says, already moving forward, following the trail.

"Be kind to Carol." Dante says, giving Rick a little bow.

Rick claps her on the shoulder and she narrows her eyes at him but he doesn't see it as he walks away.

They make it about twenty more yards before Daryl turns from the trail he's following to look at her.

"You tell Rick to 'be kind to Carol' and then you look at him like you wanna put a bolt through his head. What's that all about?" He asks before turning back to the trail and moving forward at a noticeably slower pace than before.

Dante scans the area around them with her crossbow raised, trying to choose her words carefully.

"I don't like being touched is all." She says shortly.

He turns to look at her then. "Didn't seem like it back at the CDC."

Dante feels a blush creeping onto her face. She doesn't know what to say.

Does she tell him that she feels like what they had done back at the CDC was a dumb mistake? It would be the truth. Especially after she admitted to her having a small crush on the man and him not returning the feelings at all.

Her sister always said that if you can't speak the truth you shouldn't speak at all.

Maybe Dante should take her advice for once in her life.

"I don't know what that was. ...A mistake, I think." She says.

Daryl looks down then, sort of chews on his lip for a moment. Dante watches his face.

He looks like he might say something but Dante is saved from further conversation when they both hear leaves and twigs snapping off to their side.

Dante immediately drops down to a squat, raising her crossbow and looking around her quickly. Daryl follows suit.

"There." She whispers, pointing down a ways from where they're crouched in the forest.

Daryl nods and then motions for her to move to the left while he goes to the right. Dante nods in return and quickly makes her way to the left to head off the walker.

"Hey, asshole." She snarls, and the walker immediately begins going towards her. She raises her crossbow and finds its head in her cross hairs.

She can see Daryl a few yards behind it, aiming his crossbow.

 _Twing!_

"Too slow, baby." She smirks as she walks up and pulls her bolt out of the walker's head.

"Yeah, you got lucky." He says, but it's good natured, and she can't help but smile at him.

She crouches down then to inspect the walker.

"It has fresh blood on its mouth. It ate recently."

"Yeah...but ate what?"

"Only one way to find out." She answers, grimacing down at the thing and setting down her crossbow in the dirt.

She only has weight lifting gloves in her pack and she'd rather not goop them up with walker blood so she pulls out her hunting knife and is about to stab into the creature's stomach when Daryl catches her arm.

"Let me." He says, nodding at her.

Dante pulls back a bit and frowns. "I can do it."

"Don't doubt it. I got gloves though." He says, producing a pair of what look like gardening gloves from his pocket.

"You can do it." She says then, nodding and smiling a little.

"Might wanna scoot back." He warns her.

She moves back a little bit and is immediately glad that he told her to when he plunges his knife into the walker's middle and blood squirts out everywhere, getting on his shirt, pants, and forearms.

He continues to cut into it until he finds its gut bag and then he scoops it out and puts it on the side.

"This is the nasty part." He grumbles, holding the bag down on the dirt floor and cutting into it.

She grimaces as the stench of its guts wafts up to her nose and puts a hand over her face.

"Yeah...looks like this gross bastard had himself a woodchuck for lunch." He says, scooping out a clump of red feathers with his knife and letting her look at it before he shakes it off onto the ground.

"At least we know it's not her." Dante says, taking his knife from his bloody gloved hand and wiping it off on a clean section of the walker's shirt. She wipes her own hands off on it afterwards and hands his knife back to him once he's pulled his gloves off.

"Trail's cold. Let's get back up to the highway. The sun will be setting soon." Dante suggests and Daryl nods as he gets to his feet.

Dante's anxious as they walk back to the highway, feeling certain that Daryl's going to bring the CDC up again but he doesn't.

They walk in silence until they get back up to guard rail of the highway and Dante hops over it.

The whole group crowds around them in an instance, making her wish she had stayed behind the guard rail the way Daryl had.

"You didn't find her?" Carol is gasping, immediately beginning to cry.

Dante makes a face. She's awkward and no good at comforting people. Nora was always much better at that.

Dante doesn't know how to handle people when they're like this.

"Trail went cold. We'll start lookin' again at first light. No use wanderin' around out there in the dark. We'd just be trippin' over ourselves." Daryl puts in.

Dante sighs with relief.

"How could you just leave her out there in the first place!? She's only a child!" Carol begins shouting at Rick.

Dante scowls. She almost wants to tell the crying woman off but the Nora that lives in her head now is reminding her that this woman is just panicked and upset. Her daughter just got lost in the woods.

"Imagine it was me." Her mental Nora says and the scowl leaves Dante's face immediately.

"We'll all go out lookin' for her, first thing tomorrow. I promise. I've asked Daryl to oversee this whole thing, I know that he and Dante know the woods better than any of us and they're going to lead us through tomorrow." Rick says.

Carol shakes her head at him, looking angry still. "That's my baby out there. My baby is lost in the woods alone. With walkers." She cries.

Dante shifts uncomfortably, but Carol sits down on the guard rail and starts to cry and Lori and Andrea take over to help comfort her.

X

Dante scavenges through the cars for a while, finding a few boxes of food here and there. When she finds a pack of cigarettes she feels like she's hit a gold mine but by then the sun is down and she makes her way back over to the RV.

"I'll take watch." Dante says, peering up at Dale.

Dale takes one last look around, doing a complete 360 with his rifle before looking down at her once more and nodding.

He makes his way over to the little ladder and Dante nods to him before crawling up it.

Once she's up she watches as most of the group files into the RV. Rick and Lori opting to take Carl and sleep in their car.

After no more than twenty minutes Dante hears the door to the RV open and she peeks over the side to see Daryl stepping out. He closes the door and stares up at her, crossbow slung over one shoulder and a box of cheezits in his hands.

Daryl makes his way over to the end of the RV and climbs up the ladder, throwing his cheezits to the top and nearly hitting her in the face with the box.

Dante scans their perimeter one more time until she looks back to where he was and finds herself pointing her crossbow right in his face.

"Came to make a trade, not get shot." He grumbles at her, bending to pick up the box of cheezits.

She scoffs at him.

"Musta searched about twenty cars without finding a single one. You search five and you find a whole damn pack." He says, offering her the box of cheezits.

Dante blinks at him for a moment before realizing, touches at the breast pocket of her overshirt where she put the pack of cigarettes.

"Share these with me and I'll give you one." She says, shutting the window that opens down into the bathroom of the RV.

"Don't want em?" He asks.

"Don't you?"

Daryl shrugs a little but then nods, opening the box and the bag within and pouring out as many as his other grubby hand can hold.

Dante zips open her backpack that sits at the end of the top of the RV and finds her hand sanitizer, squirting the gel into her hands and rubbing them together before wiping them off on the inside of her overshirt.

"Didn't know we were tryna be all _civilized_." Daryl teases as she comes back to stick her hand in the box.

She just scoffs at him, cramming cheezits into her mouth and chewing while she scans the treeline once again.

A few minutes go by where they're just quietly eating. They make it to the bottom of the box fairly quickly and then Daryl takes the bag out and lifts the bag up to pour the last crumbs into his mouth.

Dante goes to her pack and pulls out her other pack of cigarettes, her last two remaining cigarettes looking lonely inside.

She takes ten out of the pack she had found just a few hours ago and stuff them into her own pack, pulling out one of her remaining favorites and sticking it in her mouth before handing the new pack to Daryl.

He looks at he speculatively before opening it up, finding eight cigarettes left inside.

Daryl squints up at her.

"Didn't have to give me this many. Not that I'm complainin' or nothin'."

"Just say thank you before I change my mind." Dante teases, pulling out her lighter from her bra and lighting her smoke.

"Thanks." Daryl mumbles, his mouth already clamped around a cigarette.

Dante watches as he pulls out the purple lighter she had given him and lights his cigarette with it before quickly putting it back in his pants pocket.

Dante scans their perimeter once more before taking a seat next to him and cracking open the bottle of gatorade she had found earlier, sipping at it between puffs of her cigarette.

Daryl steals a few drinks of her gatorade as they sit there, enjoying their cigarettes and Dante lets him. The night grows silent as the people inside the RV settle down to sleep.

"I'm starting to wish I hadn't traded Nora's car for my bike." Dante murmurs quietly, taking another drag.

He looks at her speculatively so she explains, "I don't have anywhere to sleep."

He nods at her and then speaks as he exhales, "Just keep watch for a couple of hours, I'll take over for ya and you can get some rest in the RV."

Dante sighs. "I don't belong in there. I don't know how to explain it...Nora would have. They would have welcomed her with open arms...but Nora wouldn't have suggested she take watch. She would have been in there already, chit chatting it up with all of them...but I'm not Nora."

Daryl nods at her and it's quiet for a few moments before he speaks again. "Tell ya what. I'll grab us a couple a blankets, bring 'em up here. You keep watch until you're tired then I'll take over."

She raises her eyebrows at him as she stubs her cigarette out on her boot.

"Are you suggesting a sleepover?"

He scoffs at her and begins making his way down the ladder.

He returns just a minute or two later with blankets, as promised.

He sets one blanket down on the top of the RV and then sets another blanket down on top of that one, he keeps the last blanket in hand and pulls it up over himself as he lays down on the blankets he set up as the base and then he peers up at her, looking absolutely adorable and ridiculous. Dante can't help the giggle that escapes her lips.

"What you laughin' at?" He growls.

"You."

He narrows his eyes at her and she lets out a little giggle once again.

"Just go to sleep already. You look too cozy in there, you're making me sleepy."

"Fine." He grumbles, turning over to be on his back.

He lets one hand rest over his face and then it's quiet.

Nearly an hour goes by before Daryl startles her from her billionth scan of the treeline.

"You really think it was a mistake?"

Dante glares down at where he's laying, peering up at her from beneath the blanket.

"I thought you were sleeping."

"Couldn't."

She sighs bitterly before finishing her scan and then sitting down beside him. Daryl props himself up on one elbow and turns to look at her.

"I don't know." She says honestly. "I didn't think it was. Not until I told you I liked you and _then_ I thought it was. Now, I still kind of do, but it's just because you don't like me back."

"I don't even know why it matters," She continues after a moment of thinking, "I've had sex with guys I didn't care about before. That 'just to get off' kind of thing or 'just cause he was hot and I'm a drunk idiot' kind of thing but...I guess I've never had it the other way around like this..where I _do_ care and it's the other person who doesn't for once."

It's quiet for a while after that and Dante stands back up to scan the area again, unable to think of anything else to say.

"Never said I didn't care." Daryl says finally and she peers down at him again.

"Never said you did."

"I'm sayin' it now."

"You still haven't."

Daryl growls in frustration. "I'm tryna be nice to you, why you gotta make it so damn hard?"

Dante huffs out a tiny laugh. "This is why I've never had any friends, I guess."

He rolls his eyes up at her.

She goes to sit by him again, keeping her eyes trained on their surroundings, but allowing her hand to find it's way to his hair and petting it softly.

After a few moments he lays back down and closes her eyes as she continues.

When Dante's hand finally slacks off it's because she's fallen asleep and the moment the petting stops Daryl wakes up so he moves her to a laying down position and covers her with two of the blankets before standing up to take over the watch.

Daryl considers her sleeping figure for a moment before stooping down and placing a quick kiss to her forehead, awkwardly keeping his eyes away from her after that - making him completely unaware that the woman was smiling as she finally fell asleep.


End file.
